I don't suspect that BT would come back even if allowed. He had been working towards a ban for a while, and basically did all but ask for it towards the end. He has issues with the admins; I doubt that the banning has diminished them.

Also, I've already established that Alma is Dwight. I realized it sometime around his 42nd "False." response. Varus is more like the actor who plays Dwight, as he's doing it satirically.

BT meant what he said. Varus doesn't even know what he's saying, therefore he can't mean any of it. He (vaurs) is a deliberate and bad troll, just saying everything he says in order to get a rise. BT did that also, but he really meant a lot of the off-the-wall **** he said.

Varus doesn't even know what he's saying, therefore he can't mean any of it.

Yeah I really couldn't take anything he said seriously, and had trouble seeing it as objectionable because of that. A luxury of not being an admin I suppose.

What he says might be false, but he believes he's in the right. I can't take anything he says seriously because I know he's a fool--doesn't mean what he says isn't objectionable.

He's currently under a week's ban because of his elegant use of some racial slurs. He doesn't understand why those are problematic or offensive, but it doesn't mean that it's not completely objectionable for him to use them.

He's currently under a week's ban because of his elegant use of some racial slurs. He doesn't understand why those are problematic or offensive, but it doesn't mean that it's not completely objectionable for him to use them.

I can pretty much guarantee you that he understands perfectly well.

I'm an advocate of the Asylum being truly "No holds barred". Do we need to have some sort of legal disclaimer to achieve that? Honest question. I'd prefer it if we didn't have banned words or wishy-washy subjective rules about where the line is verbally.

He's currently under a week's ban because of his elegant use of some racial slurs. He doesn't understand why those are problematic or offensive, but it doesn't mean that it's not completely objectionable for him to use them.

I can pretty much guarantee you that he understands perfectly well.

I'm an advocate of the Asylum being truly "No holds barred". Do we need to have some sort of legal disclaimer to achieve that? Honest question. I'd prefer it if we didn't have banned words or wishy-washy subjective rules about where the line is verbally.

Edited, Dec 29th 2011 3:35pm by Eske

Sure, put it in your account settings that you have to opt in, in order to view/post in "mature forums". This would act as an age verification and disclaimer notice.

Re banning folks: I have to side with the admins on this. Free speech in the USA is regulated, the classic case of yelling "fire" in a theater for example. No amount of disclaimer, acceptance policy for this site can stop something from here going viral somewhere else. Just check out the PR thread on this site for an example. Now in my opinion, the PR thread was for a good cause, but it also resulted in malicious spamming of the service reps private use email/sites. There is a load of stuff out there that can and will be used by others in negative ways, which is why Admins exist.

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For Truth, Justice, and the Norrathian Way! Tinkering is a trade skill which will not prevent the mobs from hitting you.

I'm an advocate of the Asylum being truly "No holds barred". Do we need to have some sort of legal disclaimer to achieve that? Honest question. I'd prefer it if we didn't have banned words or wishy-washy subjective rules about where the line is verbally.

So noted, and there are definitly those who agree with you. The nice thing about having been here first and being the senior forum admin is I get to make the rules.

For example, I personally prefer not to have my forum cluttered up by horse **** links or links to pictures of a certain number of females doing things with a certain number of cups. Or links from people who like to see goats. Not to mention the virus links, etc. Or the videos of people being decapitated by terrorists or being killed graphically by an unfortunate helicopter blade incident, or the one with the very realistic looking human babies being boiled. I find them to be "extremely objectionable". And yes, those are all examples from the forum history that I have had to deal with, and no, they don't pay any of us enough to deal with that ****. A number of people on here find derogetory slang terms for someone of african decent extremely objectionable and are vocal in their objection to them being used. Under a completely "No holds barred" forum, those would still be here. Also all the topic spamming, and the goldmongers and RMTers and people selling nike shoes at low low prices! Then there are legal aspects that we as a company have to uphold, specifically things like copyright violation (software key posts, etc). If we don't remove those, we condone them, and under various laws can be liable.

There have to be lines. There are really very few things that will get you banned in Asylum, especially compared to the gaming forums or OOT, but they are there. Usually you have to cross them multiple times before you get banned. We do adjust the rules from time to time, and if there were sufficeint backing we could certainly amend some asylum specific rules. Start a petition thread or something if you feel strongly about it.

I'm an advocate of the Asylum being truly "No holds barred". Do we need to have some sort of legal disclaimer to achieve that? Honest question. I'd prefer it if we didn't have banned words or wishy-washy subjective rules about where the line is verbally.

So noted, and there are definitly those who agree with you. The nice thing about having been here first and being the senior forum admin is I get to make the rules.

For example, I personally prefer not to have my forum cluttered up by horse **** links or links to pictures of a certain number of females doing things with a certain number of cups. Or links from people who like to see goats. Not to mention the virus links, etc. Or the videos of people being decapitated by terrorists or being killed graphically by an unfortunate helicopter blade incident, or the one with the very realistic looking human babies being boiled. I find them to be "extremely objectionable". And yes, those are all examples from the forum history that I have had to deal with, and no, they don't pay any of us enough to deal with that sh*t. A number of people on here find derogetory slang terms for someone of african decent extremely objectionable and are vocal in their objection to them being used. Under a completely "No holds barred" forum, those would still be here. Also all the topic spamming, and the goldmongers and RMTers and people selling nike shoes at low low prices! Then there are legal aspects that we as a company have to uphold, specifically things like copyright violation (software key posts, etc). If we don't remove those, we condone them, and under various laws can be liable.

There have to be lines. There are really very few things that will get you banned in Asylum, especially compared to the gaming forums or OOT, but they are there. Usually you have to cross them multiple times before you get banned. We do adjust the rules from time to time, and if there were sufficeint backing we could certainly amend some asylum specific rules. Start a petition thread or something if you feel strongly about it.

I don't see why allowing certain verbal stuff has to preclude one from disallowing offensive videos, or spammers.

But...

Quote:

Start a petition thread or something if you feel strongly about it.

...it's not something I feel particularly strongly about at all. Just an "if I had my 'druthers" thing.

Well, regardless of how I feel about BT getting banned (for the record, I wasn't shocked that he was banned, I was shocked that I wasn't aware of it, that he explicitly did something kao said not to do pretty much answers any questions I had), I do agree with the sentiment that "no holds barred" should be just that. I mean, I realize that it's obviously not worth the time/effort to try and finagle the coding to not filter words inside a single forum, or to to enact a filter option, and that at this point in time, zam's filters exist almost purely for the sake of saving face.

Honestly, filters are pretty unnecessary in practice, since most kids these days know, understand, and frequently use most commonly filtered swear words before they hit 10 years old. The problem arises from these children's parents, specifically the ones who delude themselves into thinking their child is an angel that doesn't understand what the word sh*t means, because those parents can, and regularly do, throw a sh*tstorm if they find out that their kid is using a site that claims to be "kid friendly" but allows swearing.

I can also understand the rule about words that are generally considered social taboo (racial/ethic slurs primarily), because even in a no holds barred discourse, most people will tend to shy away from those words just because their use makes one come off as uncouth and/or uneducated. That said, I do feel that if those words are grounds for a ban, shouldn't they be filtered?

Seriously, the words that get filtered are so bizarre and almost none of them are actually considered BAD words. I mean, take sh*t. sh*t is what my family says when we take a group photo (Instead of "Everybody say cheese!" we say "Everybody say sh*t!", and I don't just mean my immediate family, I mean my massive, extended, Irish Catholic family, including my 72 year old grandmother, her 6 brothers and sisters, their spouses, their kids, her kids (my aunts and uncles, and my mom), all of the grandkids (including myself), and even the growing number of great grandkids). On top of that, the sh*t filter can't even distinguish between when the word itself is being used, or if - s h i t - is just part of a longer word, (first example I can think of is an item from ffxi, Aikido Kosh*ta; but I know there are a couple people who get an * in their name if you quote them as well). And then there's words like Rectal Sphincter. Rectal Sphincter is filtered, but "asshat", "@#%^", "assclown", "*******", "jackass", and generic "***" are not, to my knowledge, filtered. The fact that Rectal Sphincter shares its filter with swear words that are far "worse" is kind of funny to me.

I mean, can understand certain words being filtered due to excessive over use, such as the legacymeme mnk item, or lol drg/pup from the FFXI boards (and I do so love how those filter), or uttering Mr. Norris's name, but having these filtered, but not racial slurs? I'm also well aware that the number of filters are generally kept to a limit because adding more slows down the site due to how they're coded, but honestly, that feels like a bit of a cop out given the list of words that are filtered.

Seriously... the filtered words I know of: sh*t = sh*t rectal sphincter = @#%^ *** = @#%^ racial slur for black people = @#%^ (only the one obvious one, and only a single spelling of it) slurish term for lady parts = @#%^ (I know that this word isn't treated as so severe outside the US, hence the ish, but in the US it's definitely a slur)

unfiltered slurs: (edit: removed the spoilered swear slurs because kao's post wasn't there when I started this and I decided they weren't really necessary to make the point. I left the spoilered swear words though, because they're all fairly commonly used around zam and I figure people could use the mental exercise) slurs for hispanic people slurs for asian people (a little understandable given its alternative and far more common use and definition) slurs for white people (because calling a white person by a racial slur for white people totally isn't racist.) slurs for polish people (I live in IL, so I'm probably more aware of this one than most people) slurs for jewsish people slurs for muslim and arabic people slurs for *** people slurs for transexual/transgender people note: after pulling slurs from memory and from a list of slurs (wikipedia goes, pulled out the ones that are common enough that I've heard them used as slurs), I must say, you brits are a @#%^ing hateful group of people

unfiltered swear/curse words, and also *** words that are considered vulgar ache ee double hockey sticks ****female dog *****child born out of wedlock *******4 letter word for urine **** (equivalent to sh*t in terms of the level of profanity, so that one is filtered and one isn't is rather inconsistent) Hoover **************** Gluteus Maximus ***/****nonscientific terms for lady parts ****, @#%^, etcnonscientific terms for gentleman parts ****, ****, prick, and variants, such as @#%^er, etcmammaries tits[/spoiler]

tl;dr: inconsistent filters are silly and pointless.

edit:

Dread Lörd Kaolian wrote:

Eske Esquire wrote:

I'm an advocate of the Asylum being truly "No holds barred". Do we need to have some sort of legal disclaimer to achieve that? Honest question. I'd prefer it if we didn't have banned words or wishy-washy subjective rules about where the line is verbally.

So noted, and there are definitly those who agree with you. The nice thing about having been here first and being the senior forum admin is I get to make the rules.

For example, I personally prefer not to have my forum cluttered up by horse **** links or links to pictures of a certain number of females doing things with a certain number of cups. Or links from people who like to see goats. Not to mention the virus links, etc. Or the videos of people being decapitated by terrorists or being killed graphically by an unfortunate helicopter blade incident, or the one with the very realistic looking human babies being boiled. I find them to be "extremely objectionable". And yes, those are all examples from the forum history that I have had to deal with, and no, they don't pay any of us enough to deal with that sh*t. A number of people on here find derogetory slang terms for someone of african decent extremely objectionable and are vocal in their objection to them being used. Under a completely "No holds barred" forum, those would still be here. Also all the topic spamming, and the goldmongers and RMTers and people selling nike shoes at low low prices! Then there are legal aspects that we as a company have to uphold, specifically things like copyright violation (software key posts, etc). If we don't remove those, we condone them, and under various laws can be liable.

There have to be lines. There are really very few things that will get you banned in Asylum, especially compared to the gaming forums or OOT, but they are there. Usually you have to cross them multiple times before you get banned. We do adjust the rules from time to time, and if there were sufficeint backing we could certainly amend some asylum specific rules. Start a petition thread or something if you feel strongly about it.

Personally, I vote you guys just make a list of words that are deemed inappropriate and tack it into the rules somewhere, and then include guidelines defining which words are inappropriate where (ie: more strict guidelines for the wow forums, since they have younger posters, but far more relaxed for the assylum, because it's the assylum). Only needs to be done once, can have new words updated as they become a problem, and saves everyone the time/hassle/headache of dealing with the currently somewhat in effective list of filters

Edited, Dec 29th 2011 9:16pm by Jinte

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Theytak, Siren Server LOLGAXE IS MY ETERNAL RIVAL!

Reiterpallasch wrote:

Glitterhands wrote:

Am I the only one who clicked on this thread expecting actual baby photos [of Jinte]? o.O

Except if it were baby photos, it would be like looking at before and afters of Michael Jackson. Only instead of turning into a white guy, he changes into a chick!

note: after pulling slurs from memory and from a list of slurs (wikipedia goes, pulled out the ones that are common enough that I've heard them used as slurs), I must say, you brits are a @#%^ing hateful group of people

**** off, we're just more imaginative with our use of the language than you ex-colonials are.

edit: No seriously we do hate most of the world, and in turn are hated. I guess that comes from owning it for so long...Yay.

I don't ever plan on posting anything related to spiders, because spiders creep me the **** out. I'm not arachnophobic, but I'm more bothered by them than most people (spiderman is an exception to this rule). I do have a phobia of knives though. Swords, spears, axes, chainsaws, guns, etc, none of those bother me. Knives? I can't touch them. Like, I can't even use a steak knife. For some reason swiss army knife style tools with knives built in don't bother me as much, I'm not comfortable with them but I can handle them and use them, and butter knives don't bother me at all, because they're butter knives, but kitchen knives, switchblades, pocket knives that are only a knife, military knives, daggers, etc etc, I can't even touch.

gah, I've given myself the willies just thinking about it

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Theytak, Siren Server LOLGAXE IS MY ETERNAL RIVAL!

Reiterpallasch wrote:

Glitterhands wrote:

Am I the only one who clicked on this thread expecting actual baby photos [of Jinte]? o.O

Except if it were baby photos, it would be like looking at before and afters of Michael Jackson. Only instead of turning into a white guy, he changes into a chick!

As far as I remember, and it's been a while and frankly I wasn't paying close attention anyway, BUT to the best of my cold recollection BT posted a lot of his schtick in the OOT, probably because it was easier to troll there; which may have contributed to his banning, I guess.

And whoever said BT was less aware of what he was doing than Varus is just nuts, IMO. They're both trolls, but BT made the effort to be outrageous and funny, and Varus just repeats the same stupid boring dross. Every. Single. Post.

Whatever, it's not up to me; but I miss BT. He made me laugh, and even got the occasional rise out of me even as I knew I was being trolled. That's good trolling.

Edited to add: Jinte, how the **** do you cook anything?

Edited, Dec 29th 2011 7:51pm by Samira

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

note: after pulling slurs from memory and from a list of slurs (wikipedia goes, pulled out the ones that are common enough that I've heard them used as slurs), I must say, you brits are a @#%^ing hateful group of people

**** off, we're just more imaginative with our use of the language than you ex-colonials are.

edit: No seriously we do hate most of the world, and in turn are hated. I guess that comes from owning it for so long...Yay.

Sucks to inherit the hatred without having had the benefit of ownage, doesn't it?

Oh, well. It'll be someone else's turn to be hated, soon enough.

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

As far as I remember, and it's been a while and frankly I wasn't paying close attention anyway, BUT to the best of my cold recollection BT posted a lot of his schtick in the OOT, probably because it was easier to troll there; which may have contributed to his banning, I guess.

And whoever said BT was less aware of what he was doing than Varus is just nuts, IMO. They're both trolls, but BT made the effort to be outrageous and funny, and Varus just repeats the same stupid boring dross. Every. Single. Post.

Whatever, it's not up to me; but I miss BT. He made me laugh, and even got the occasional rise out of me even as I knew I was being trolled. That's good trolling.

Edited to add: Jinte, how the **** do you cook anything?

I can't cook for **** anyway

lolgaxe wrote:

Shit, ****, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits.

I was thinking of him the entire time I was writing that post, and I went and watched that after I finished editing it.

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Theytak, Siren Server LOLGAXE IS MY ETERNAL RIVAL!

Reiterpallasch wrote:

Glitterhands wrote:

Am I the only one who clicked on this thread expecting actual baby photos [of Jinte]? o.O

Except if it were baby photos, it would be like looking at before and afters of Michael Jackson. Only instead of turning into a white guy, he changes into a chick!

note: after pulling slurs from memory and from a list of slurs (wikipedia goes, pulled out the ones that are common enough that I've heard them used as slurs), I must say, you brits are a @#%^ing hateful group of people

**** off, we're just more imaginative with our use of the language than you ex-colonials are.

edit: No seriously we do hate most of the world, and in turn are hated. I guess that comes from owning it for so long...Yay.

Sucks to inherit the hatred without having had the benefit of ownage, doesn't it?

Oh, well. It'll be someone else's turn to be hated, soon enough.

Have you met US?

But anyway, my stance on this is that BT added value to the forum. He did something bad, was punished, and I'm of the opinion that he should be offered the opportunity to post, potentially with some probationary period or whatever.

If I didn't think it was something that would benefit the forum, I wouldn't be presenting the idea.

There has been a ticket requesting adjustment of the swear filter, including its near removal from asylum for 3 years now. I'll prod it again when I get a chance. yes, we know its screwed up. Yes, we have a list of words that should be filtered that aren't. Yes, some of the ones that are filtered shouldn't be regardless. Blame Allakhazam. Or maybe Illia. It will be fixed someday.

I'm all for banning anyone even hinting at posting items related to 8 legged insect cousins aside from this reference signifying my agreement, but I figure that just because spiders creep me the **** out and cause inevitable violent overreaction against whoever tries to prank me with pictures of spiders in person is no reason for me to impose that particular restriction on the rest of the forum. I will admit to karma camping the **** out of unrepentant repeat spider posters on occasion though. Job perk.

But anyway, my stance on this is that BT added value to the forum. He did something bad, was punished, and I'm of the opinion that he should be offered the opportunity to post, potentially with some probationary period or whatever.

If I didn't think it was something that would benefit the forum, I wouldn't be presenting the idea.

I'd certainly enjoy seeing him post again. However, I'm not so sure he'd make it through a probationary period.

But anyway, my stance on this is that BT added value to the forum. He did something bad, was punished, and I'm of the opinion that he should be offered the opportunity to post, potentially with some probationary period or whatever.

If I didn't think it was something that would benefit the forum, I wouldn't be presenting the idea.

I'd certainly enjoy seeing him post again. However, I'm not so sure he'd make it through a probationary period.

could always chain him up to one of the walls and say "You're only allowed to post in the asylum, because they begged. No, you can't even post in OoT." Though without some form of mechanic to actually prevent him from posting outside of the asylum, I don't see him making it through the probationary period either, though I will say his posts did entertain me. He's one of the few people around who knows how to troll well enough that you can regularly say "Not sure if serious" and mean it.

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Theytak, Siren Server LOLGAXE IS MY ETERNAL RIVAL!

Reiterpallasch wrote:

Glitterhands wrote:

Am I the only one who clicked on this thread expecting actual baby photos [of Jinte]? o.O

Except if it were baby photos, it would be like looking at before and afters of Michael Jackson. Only instead of turning into a white guy, he changes into a chick!

But anyway, my stance on this is that BT added value to the forum. He did something bad, was punished, and I'm of the opinion that he should be offered the opportunity to post, potentially with some probationary period or whatever.

If I didn't think it was something that would benefit the forum, I wouldn't be presenting the idea.

I'd certainly enjoy seeing him post again. However, I'm not so sure he'd make it through a probationary period.

could always chain him up to one of the walls and say "You're only allowed to post in the asylum, because they begged. No, you can't even post in OoT." Though without some form of mechanic to actually prevent him from posting outside of the asylum, I don't see him making it through the probationary period either, though I will say his posts did entertain me. He's one of the few people around who knows how to troll well enough that you can regularly say "Not sure if serious" and mean it.

I didn't even mean him posting outside the Asylum. The first time anyone opens themselves up to ridicule, he'll take his shot even if it's Kao, who would likely re-ban him.

And considering the topic at hand, I've sometimes wondered how close I was to admin action with some of my racial slurs. But is it really all that offensive when I use the word "negroid" in mocking varus's racism?

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publiusvarus wrote:

we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.

I'm just all ornery because varus got [banned\muted] in the middle of this thread and I wanted to hear more of his "war stories" about the mean streets of Knoxville, TN.

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publiusvarus wrote:

we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.